This Major Breaking Bad Character Was Almost Killed Off in Season One

There were plenty of tragic deaths throughout Breaking Bad's five seasons, the list of which I won't detail here for anyone who still needs to binge-watch the series (if that's not a 2016 resolution, it needs to be). But the shocking demise one character in particular—one pretty major player—needs to be rediscussed in light of new revelations. [STOP HERE TO AVOID ALL SPOILERS. You've been warned.] No, we're not here to debate whether or not Walt is dead or not. (You can visit these fan message boards for those conspiracy theories.) Instead, we are turning our focus to the bombshell that Breaking Bad creator Vince Gilligan just dropped regarding the fate of Walt's cop brother-in-law, Hank Schrader. According to Gilligan, Hank was almost offed halfway through season one. To refresh your BB memories, Hank was around for all five seasons on the hunt for Heisenberg (when, all along, Heisenberg was right under his nose). He survives a shoot-out in season three that leaves him paralyzed from the waist down, but eventually, Hank's quest to catch Walt red-handed leaves him with a bullet in the head (in the third-to-last episode of the series). Gilligan, however, shared on Kevin Pollack's Chat Show

There were plenty of tragic deaths throughout Breaking Bad's five seasons, the list of which I won't detail here for anyone who still needs to binge-watch the series (if that's not a 2016 resolution, it needs to be). But the shocking demise one character in particular—one pretty major player—needs to be rediscussed in light of new revelations.

[STOP HERE TO AVOID ALL SPOILERS. You've been warned.]

*No, we're not here to debate whether or not Walt is dead or not. (You can visit these fan message boards for those conspiracy theories.) Instead, we are turning our focus to the bombshell that Breaking Bad creator Vince Gilligan just dropped regarding the fate of Walt's cop brother-in-law, Hank Schrader. According to Gilligan, Hank was almost offed halfway through season one. *__

Never has a show's winding-down made our heart rates rise so precariously. Our new motto: If we got through Breaking Bad's "Ozymandias," we can get through anything.

Courtesy of AMC

To refresh your BB memories, Hank was around for all five seasons on the hunt for Heisenberg (when, all along, Heisenberg was right under his nose). He survives a shoot-out in season three that leaves him paralyzed from the waist down, but eventually, Hank's quest to catch Walt red-handed leaves him with a bullet in the head (in the third-to-last episode of the series). Gilligan, however, shared on Kevin Pollack's Chat Show recently that the original plan was to kill Hank back in season one—but he was saved by the writers' strike.

"The writers' strike came along, and we didn't get to do our last two episodes," Gilligan explained. "We had to end our season one with seven episodes instead of nine. Our ninth episode that year, we were seriously leaning toward killing off Hank, Walt's brother-in-law, played by Dean Norris, in that first season...I was ready, willing to throw the kitchen sink at it because I was afraid we wouldn't hold people's attention."

You can watch the full interview below:

__Alright, my fellow BB addicts: What do you make of this? Can you imagine Breaking Bad without Hank?